Dreaming War - Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta

These essays are the sequel to 'Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace', and begin with a penetrating analysis of the issues arising from 9/11 and the subsequent 'war on terrorism', which Vidal considers a misnomer, since one needs a country with which to be at war. His 'blood for oil' geopolitical thesis is applied to Afghanistan as well as the more obvious Iraq. But he goes further back - to the provocations by FDR of the Japanese in 1941, the dropping of bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima as a show of strength, and the origins of the Cold War after Yalta. All this helps lend a historical perspective to current events. A further recurrent pattern is to use military spending to fuel economic recovery, which FDR did as far back as 1941. And one hopes that election prospects are enhanced in the process. This is powerful writing that makes the case for the American Republic and against the American empire.